


i'm gonna take my time (to say it)

by aPensiveHowl



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24893128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aPensiveHowl/pseuds/aPensiveHowl
Summary: They’re all out in the garden setting up for the party when Weiss places a hand on Yang’s arm, ostensibly to keep her balance while hanging some lights. Being that it’s Weiss, always so full of poise, it feels a lot more like static washing over her, setting each hair on end. The bulbs flash on in place of lightning, someone claps in delight but Yang hears thunder; there’s not much of a delay between the two — the prelude to a storm.A look into the moment where Weiss gives herself over to the bond that's been building for three years now, in which Yang is patient and Weiss is blossoming.
Relationships: Weiss Schnee/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	i'm gonna take my time (to say it)

**Author's Note:**

> This scene rightfully belongs deep into a much longer slow (freezer)burn piece that I’m never going to actually write. Hopefully this adapted one-shot version still retains some depth and stands well enough by itself.
> 
> I have no clue what I’m doing (obviously).

* * *

_  
I'm gonna take my time_  
_To say it_  
_Cos' I'm not sure what I'm saying._  
_Gonna take my words_  
_and plant them_  
_They can talk when they're tall trees swaying._

~~~

At the start of their fourth year of university Yang heads back to the city a few weeks earlier than needed, Weiss in tow. Yang plans to pick up some extra shifts at work while Weiss claims that she’s got to get on with organising their last start of term party which, Weiss being Weiss, only actually takes two days. The handwritten RSVPs were mailed the moment their accomodation was confirmed; nobody bothers asking how she gets their address anymore. 

If the extra time lets them be alone, gives some space for discovery, then Yang’s willing to deal with some extra shifts behind the bar. 

It works perfectly. Weiss falls asleep on the couch their first night there, nestled into Yang, the pressure of a summer surrounded by others finally released. When Yang carries a grumbling Weiss upstairs there’s a scramble to unpack the pyjamas after she’s informed that ‘ugh, I can’t wear outdoor clothes in _bed_ ’ (whatever that’s about).

A few days later they hop a town over to visit the beach. Yang manages to convince Weiss to walk barefoot on the sand, after much pleading and pointing out that she’ll have sand in her precious shoes for weeks otherwise. The sun has brought out the crowds but there’s plenty of space down by the waters edge, so they take their walk with the surf lapping at their ankles. Yang can’t help but think how _light_ Weiss looks, sheer dress rippling around her in the breeze, a small but open smile tucked under her wide brimmed hat. Yang offers up her arm but Weiss takes her hand instead, only letting go properly when they sit down for dinner.

Any ambiguity over their maybe-not-a-date is dispelled on the doorstep of the flat they’ll all be sharing, the cheesiness of that giving Yang some extra courage. She waits for Weiss to be a couple of steps up — back to holding hands again — before pulling her to a gentle stop. Weiss turns, quirking an eyebrow, and Yang steps close, with their eyes are level there’s no subtlety when hers flit to Weiss’s lips. It’s effortless for Weiss to lean in from the step, their arms finding each other and lips following; the kiss is fleeting but the sentiment lingers in the hug it becomes.

Things change between them after that, at least until their friends start arriving the following week and Weiss takes a step back. The sudden distance stings, but to Yang it’s the conflict she can see within Weiss that hurts more, rolling beneath the surface, a riptide she’s been fighting for years. There’s a comfort for Yang — the girl who’s always left behind — in Weiss’s conviction, in her dedication to their confluence no matter how rocky the course may be. So Yang doesn’t worry, content with offering persistence and patience for a little longer, because she understands that Weiss sees the world in black and white, uncompromising. She only wishes Weiss was a little easier on herself.

They’re all out in the garden setting up for the party when Weiss places a hand on Yang’s arm, ostensibly to keep her balance while hanging some lights. Being that it’s Weiss, always so full of poise, it feels a lot more like static washing over her, setting each hair on end. The bulbs flash on in place of lightning, someone claps in delight but Yang hears thunder; there’s not much of a delay between the two — the prelude to a storm.

. . . . .

It’s the kind of late that blurs into early — the summer sun dips out of sight but refuses to be entirely forgotten, washes the sky in the deepest blues and a border of green, never letting the night lay claim. Rust lines the horizon in the time between days where the world holds its breath, the owls are asleep and the early birds yet to rise. There’s a kind of magic to it, here where consequences are insubstantial and honesty comes more easily.

The party has settled into a gathering, everyone who’s still here warming themselves on the embers, not all entirely present. Blake sits next to Weiss; from this end of the garden they can see everything, marvelling at all they’ve found over the past six years. It feels like something they should be talking about, how far they’ve both come, but they know each other well enough to forgo the words.

Yang’s hanging out with Coco — who graduated last year but wasn’t going to miss this — casually leaning against one of the veranda’s columns by the deep end of the pool, wearing by far the least layers, as if she has something to prove. Not that Coco is much better, resting on the arm of a chair and dripping style even without her sunglasses, those donated to Velvet who’s curled asleep beside them. The gravity of their egos is palpable in the absence of anyone keeping them in check.

Further down the garden Penny is still the most energetic, Ruby is flagging and Nora burnt out a while ago, now down near Ren’s usual energy level. What they’re actually up to is another twist on the same mystery that it always is, playing some kind of party game where the rules change depending on who’s talking loudest, though they’re being respectful to the time in their volume. How Nora can play from down on the grass with her head on Ren’s lap is a rabbit hole of a question that, by now, everyone’s learned not to ask.

The shallow end of the pool holds the remainder of the group. More specifically it contains Pyrrha, Jaune, Sun and Neptune’s foot (progress which deserves more attention than anyone is sparing). Other faces have passed through during the course of the night, almost everyone extending their own invite outwards. Some appeared early before heading home at a reasonable hour, a few stopped by on their way to or from elsewhere and there’s probably one or two that have crashed out inside.

Coco and Yang both glance over at Weiss, who catches Yang’s eye. They’re saying something, Yang’s gaze lingering and her smile growing. Weiss, claiming it for herself, reflects it back.

‘You know,’ Blake purrs on her shoulder, ' _everyone_ here only wants you to be happy.'

‘I am happy.’ Weiss says, cool and level. It’s true, she has so _much_ now.

‘You’re scared of risking that, right?’ Blake asks, sitting more upright for a better look at Wess. ‘I get it.’ Weiss knows she understands because this is familiar ground for them, even if they’re usually on opposite sides of the conversation. ‘We would never have seen ourselves here though, you know. So how can you hold back from finding out what more is out there, even if it’s daunting?’

Blake lets her head fall back to rest, a hand resting on Weiss’s arm. The words find their purchase in Weiss’s thoughts as intended, adjusting the course of her overthinking to somewhere more promising.

. . .

Every glance Yang throws at her is a spark, a strike of flint she can feel along her bones, until it’s too much and fire catches, the smoulder in her heart ignites. It’s not the first time, she’s handled this before — smothering the flame as if no one would notice the soot. The conversation falters, the music changes.

Sometimes, Weiss comes to realise, defiance means confronting _yourself._

Blake’s whisky provides the fuel, glass handed over as if it’s the only reason she had it in the first place; it’s about the act rather than the alcohol: symbolic. Weiss’s lips sting with the memory of nervous kisses, stolen in private; words unspoken burn her tongue, despite having found other ways to get their message out; the heat spreads through her chest without dissipating. She’s wrapped in the aroma of peat smoke, brine and burnt wood, breathes it into her lungs. The fire is taking — kindling spent, it begins to consume.

It’s been three years since meeting Yang — two since the night that they really saw one another for the first time; it’s been too long and she’s done with spring and thawing. Ready for the summer, the sun isn’t enough any more, sometimes it takes a wildfire. 

She’s been a glacier — slow, impenetrable, always impending — ice and stone and safety. Now she rises with the flames, melts, becomes a tidal wave.

. . .

Yang’s laughing again — more energy than sound with Velvet asleep so close — when Coco brushes her arm. ‘Yang…’ she trails, heels allowing her the vantage to look over Yang’s shoulder, eyes gesturing, ‘ _fuck_ , Yang.’ It would be worrying if it wasn’t accompanied by such a soppy, uncool smile (the kind that she’ll deny later).

Yang turns, struck. It doesn’t matter that Weiss is barefoot for once, that Yang towers and Coco goes even further. With each step closer Weiss’s presence expands, overshadowing everything else. She’s most frightening like this, without the trappings or baubles, draped in certainty. 

Coco steps back, dragging the chair and a waking Velvet with her. That doesn’t matter either, everything else recedes like the sea before the crash; Yang forgets they ever existed to begin with.

There’s only Weiss, warning tremors from the past three years reverberating through Yang’s chest, leading them here. Weiss, full of grace even as she’s striding between the swells of a tempestuous ocean. In her approach she’s pared down to an essence, laid bare as a force of nature — looming, daunting, beautiful.

Inevitable.

Yang sees it now; how could she ever have thought she was braced for this?

. . .

Weiss holds herself together just long enough to break against Yang, against the bedrock of home. She finds the cliffs she’s been shaping for years and caves familiar yet unexplored. She surges over the crags and spills into a new world, meets the dry burns waiting for her, rushes through the glens where the pines already know her name. Everything that came before is thrown into disarray as she reforms in the image of all that’s waiting here, the best of herself. 

Her arms seek Yang’s neck, rising to her toes until she’s lifted up, no longer grounded, swept along in the flood.

There’s a haven where their lips meet, down among the surf — the taste of salt; tears from somewhere. The inferno inside her is spent, it’s task complete. All the insecurity and doubt burned away, the ground clear for new growth from seeds long sown, all the fire she needs now is in her arms.

Weiss’s memories of them take form, have a presence — _build a cairn here_ , she thinks, _a monument to us, every stone a story._

. . .

Fire and ice, they’re in conflict from the start.

The first year of university (the first _day_ ) where Yang is one of the few that doesn’t back down to her, the only one who actually pushes back. She does the same and their lives become tangled.

Somehow Yang and Nora trying to toss food into each other's mouth ends up with _her_ getting her dress ruined. Before it’s even back from the dry cleaners, Yang insists on helping to plan their first proper party. Somehow _that_ grows arms and legs until they’re renting a hall and it becomes a dance that even _Blake_ shows up to. There’s doilies and a fog machine but the biggest surprise is Yang in an honest to god dress; Weiss feels the heels are a poor sport when Yang already has such an advantage.

She’s screaming from the back of Yang’s bike, unable to back down from the challenge of being the only one not to take a ride, only learns later that Yang went overboard on purpose.

Their makeshift talent show has a stage that’s even more hastily thrown together, the whole endeavour grown well past what Weiss planned for. Yang makes a fool of herself in front of _how many_ people? Insisting that she can sing better than Weiss, barging up to go first and oh, she’s so _bad_. Weiss is the next act, it’s the first time she’s sung in public in years and rebellion takes over once she’s on stage, tinged with inspiration. _This life is mine_ , she belts out. Yang’s in the front row and the smile she wears doesn’t look like she’s lost.

She clings to her journal through the long summer, revising all the notes on her friends to stave off the solitude.

It’s all or nothing with them — they see eye to eye and actually do build Rome in a day, stray an inch from common ground and burn it down in an hour.

.

Blazing and glacial, they become a contradiction.

Second year hardly starts before they’re back at it, Yang dressed to the nines to pick her up from work for a laugh. Her own arms around Yang’s neck so tight she surprises even herself. _I missed you_ so _much._ All sincerity.

This time riding the bike isn’t so terrifying — she’s grown bolder, Yang’s softened to her.

Yang stays at the university for Christmas once she finds out that Weiss can’t bear the chill of heading home, both of them saying they want the extra tips from work, both of them taking New Year’s Eve off to spend together. _You’re coming home with Ruby and me next year_ she’s told without asking, she doesn’t question it.

They all take the train, then the ferry, then the _bus_ out to a secluded beach, get lucky and have the perfect day for it. All Weiss wants to do is sunbathe, obsessed with keeping her sunscreen intact; all Yang wants to do is swim, hiding under the parasol otherwise. At the end of the day she carries Weiss (screaming, flailing, _laughing_ ) out far enough that she can’t stand and has to cling to Yang’s shoulders to stay afloat.

She has a new journal now, all her friends get a two page spread. Yang spills over anyway.

They shouldn’t mix but somehow it works, they’re the desert and the oasis, or the volcano and it’s fertile ground. Different worlds that shouldn’t go together, somehow can’t be separated once they are; flourishing undeterred.

.

Auric and argent, they’re only a contrast now. 

Third year and she’s dragging Yang out of bed with coffee, receiving curses; when Weiss gets out of her back to back to back lectures Yang’s waiting and their roles reverse.

Over Christmas Yang doesn’t wear anything purchased this decade, Weiss thinks she’s never looked better. She’s offered an old t-shirt when her pyjamas feel too formal on Christmas morning; it leaves with her.

Whenever they bundle together to relax, Yang ties her hair up, bared neck and the line of her jaw entrancing. Weiss lets hers down, face softened, framed by fresh snow.

It’s her birthday and Yang has the kitchen set up as the trashiest fine dining experience the world has ever seen. There’s thirteen pieces of mismatched cutlery each, Yang gets the majority of the spoons while Weiss has seven knives. They only have one course (un oeuf de pâques, Weiss’s favourite) and Yang plays the parts of chef, waiter and guest in a flurry. One moment she’s wearing an actual toque blanche, coming out from the kitchen to speak to her _most important_ guest. Then she’s draped in jewellery to the point that she jingles while laughing — she laughs a lot, they both do. In between she’s wearing the same waistcoat Weiss had to at her first job, unevenly buttoned up in the haste, bowing at the end of every sentence. The wine they use to toast explains exactly where the budget for the other courses went but Yang brushes aside even the suggestion of excess. It’s the best date Weiss has ever been on (not that they call it that) and the bottle is empty by the end. The smear of lipstick on her cheek is awfully close to a first kiss, still there come morning; the bottle becomes a candlestick in Yang’s room.

She scribbles in her journal waiting in the library for Yang, doesn’t slam it shut when she shows up. There’s a whole chapter of gold and kindness now.

They’re the sun and the seasons, the moon and the tides; an invisible pull that’s impossible to separate. It’s nonsensical until it isn’t; suddenly they’ve always been that way and you’re blind for not having seen it sooner. They make sense.

. . .

Weiss relives every single way that Yang has spread throughout her life, creeping roots and charting currents, imperceptible at the time. Every brush of her fingers, each token of affection, the days and the seconds; myriad gestures making up the mosaic of them. 

Their kiss ends and it feels like breaking the surface after being tumbled through the wave, waking up on a new shore. Everything’s sparkling as she pulls back, as if there really was a flood, refractions outshining the stars. The world’s awash with her tears and absolutely none of it matters, there’s no wreckage here.

The sky is stained glass in this place, beautifully wrought with infinite patience — Yang’s an artist no matter what she says. Weiss has always known it was there, but now the sun ( _her_ sun) has risen and she realises the glory, understands what it all means, accepts it without any more hesitation.

They’re radiant, resplendent — together. Finally in compliment.

‘I love you too,’ Weiss says.

Her foot brushes against the veranda, the glimmer in her eyes sharpens to a glint, because Weiss is nothing if not dramatic. She’s going to make sure everyone knows how she feels, that’s her brand after all. She pushes off at the same time Yang shifts their weight (with a grin full of mischief), the water rushes up and it’s all eyes on them — they take the plunge, headfirst and heedless.

. . . . .

Later the same morning, Weiss’s alarm sounds to an empty room, timing itself out before anyone bothers to get up and do something about it. Across the hallway her eyelashes don’t even flutter for another three hours, it’s the first time in years she remembers waking up softly.

They’ve been here barely any time at all and already Yang’s room is seeped in warmth — in her personality — splashed over the walls and hanging in the air. Once Weiss would have called it a mess but these days she’ll settle for cluttered, comforting. Half of the clothes live in piles rather than drawers, the posters hung up already raise doubts about getting their deposit back, and there’s plants brought all the way from home. Any single thing would drive Weiss crazy in her own space but combined here, they’ve become more.

Most of it comes from the company of course, already awake but content wait, same as always. Their hair lies wild across the pillows and bed, left loose to dry off the last of the pool water overnight. They linger, no more or less than they need to be — arms woven together, legs entwined, draped in nothing but sunlight.

‘Everyone else could already see it, couldn’t they?’ Weiss asks.

‘Yeah. We’ve maybe been tarrying a little, for you.’ Yang’s lips soften the truth, remove any criticism — _for_ her, a consideration rather than a consequence.

Still.

' _Tarrying,_ Yang?’ An eyebrow rises to match her tone. ‘You’ve _rehearsed_ this.’ 

The admission is in Yang’s smile, one Weiss can’t begrudge. Instead she buries her face in the pillow to hide the rising blush, to stifle the laugh that comes with it, so melodious and buoyant that she’d float away if it weren’t for the arms around her. 

~~~

_Let it take control,_  
_We're only human_  
_Afterall._

**Author's Note:**

> \- Lyrics and title from ‘[Gently I](https://open.spotify.com/album/23ACdALOZRDHDRoWOS5rE6?highlight=spotify:track:20pPQKUyYthHeFAFvIw8nI)’ by the fantastical [Rachel Sermanni](https://twitter.com/RachelSermanni). Who, in the craziness of 2020, has been holding a chill and very human live gig from her shed most Tuesdays, come escape a little.
> 
> \- I really don’t know what I’m doing, this is the first fiction I’ve written in ~10 years and the first ever in whatever you want to call this style. Is it all a bit flowery and conceptual? Probably, but that’s okay. It’s nice to find out that I’m even capable of something like this. I’ll dial it back next time, or maybe just spread it out over more than Weiss walking across a garden.
> 
> \- Much love to Martha for investing so much time in editing this, despite knowing nothing about RWBY. Also, thanks to [sathona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwbies) and Lylaeth for the beta!
> 
> \- My condolences to punctuation.
> 
> \- Sharing this is _terrifying_ , wtf? [theMortifyingOrdealOfBeingKnown.jpg]
> 
> \- It feels like there's a lot of focal words in this beginning with C and I'm not sure at what point that happened or what it means?
> 
> \- Have another dash —
> 
> \- <3


End file.
